Men's Tennis

#9 Sagehens Topple Banana Slugs

Mar 28, 2017

POMONA (3-28) – The Banana Slugs continued their trip to Southern California as they took on ITA/NCAA Division III #9 Pomona-Pitzer in Pomona. The Sagehens defeated the Banana Slugs 5-4.

Both teams won their last match. The Banana Slugs won 7-2 over California Institute of Technology on Sunday in Pasadena while the Sagehens won 5-4 over ITA/NCAA Division III #14 Tufts University in Pomona on Friday.

The Sagehens won four singles matches while the Banana Slugs won two. In the #1 singles match between Chadwick Stone of UC Santa Cruz and Graham Maassen of Pomona Pitzer, Maassen defeated Stone 6-0, 7-6. In the #4 singles match between Sean Hollister of the Banana Slugs and Anthony Bello of the Sagehens, Bello defeated Hollister 6-4, 6-2. In the #6 singles match between Ryan Dugan of UC Santa Cruz and Avery Bicks of Pomona Pitzer, Bicks defeated Dugan 6-4, 6-1. In the #3 singles match between Derek Levchenko of the Banana Slugs and Marko Mandic of the Sagehens, Mandic defeated Levchenko 7-5, 6-1. In the #5 singles match between Alexander Flora of UC Santa Cruz and Joshua Gearou of Pomona Pitzer, Flora defeated Gearou 6-3, 6-0. The tightest singles match of the day was the #1 singles match between Chadwick Stone of the Banana Slugs and Joshua Kim of the Sagehens. Le Duff defeated Kim 6-3, 7-6.

The Banana Slugs won two doubles matches while the Sagehens won one match. In the #2 doubles match between Hollister and Le Duff of the Banana Slugs and Maassen and Jake Yasgoor of the Sagehens, Hollister and Le Duff defeated Maassen and Yasgoor 8-6. The tightest doubles matches were the #1 doubles match between Dugan and Stone of UC Santa Cruz and Bello and Simonides of Pomona Pitzer and the #3 doubles match between Flora and Levchenko of the Banana Slugs and Quinn Hirsohn and Mandic of the Sagehens. Each match had the Banana Slugs' representatives winning 9-7.

UC Santa Cruz head men's tennis coach Mike Napoli said, "This was a pivotal match for us. They were ranked eighth in the nation and it came down to the final match at 1. We lost in a tiebreaker in the second set. I could not have been more proud of these guys but tomorrow we've got our hands full as well with Redlands who is ranked seventh, so we got to keep putting our best foot forward and battle."